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Public Safety Update

Summary: Amends s. 985.686, F.S., related to the financial obligation of the counties and state for juvenile detention care by moving to a reimbursement based model where participating counties and the state would equally share 50% of the actual costs of detention care; state pays 100% of the actual costs for fiscally constrained and out of state youth and counties retain the ability to opt out of the state system.

Status: Filed 2/28/14 but currently has no committee reference nor a House companion at this time.

Summary: Seeks to overhaul safety provisions related to the State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program database and provide a recurring funding source for the program. The bill places further restrictions on persons who may access the database, including local and national background checks and provides for criminal penalties for failing to report to the database. The bill also requires law enforcement to obtain a court order before they are given access to the database after thousands of people’s private medical information was released to the public during a criminal case last year. Allows the Department of Health to receive up to $500,000 from the Medical Quality Assurance Trust Fund to cover costs of the program.

Status: SENATE: The PCB passed by 7-2 vote and filed as SB862; it has been referred to two committees but not yet calendared. HOUSE: No companion yet.

Outlook: Unknown - Law enforcement is currently opposed to court order requirement indicating that it will add unnecessary delays and costs to the detection of illegal prescription drug trade and possession.

Summary: Creates the "Uniform Knife and Weapons Act"; prohibits state agencies and political subdivisions from regulating knives and weapons; provides that certain rules or ordinances of a state agency or political subdivision regulating knives or weapons are void; authorizes civil actions against a state agency or political subdivision that enacts or fails to repeal a prohibited rule or ordinance; provides for the termination of employment or removal from office of a person in violation of the act.

Summary: Allows a child who has been detained to be transferred to the detention center or facility in the circuit in which the child resides or will reside at the time of detention; requires the court to hold a hearing if a child is charged with direct contempt of court and to afford the child due process at such hearing; requires that a child taken into custody and placed into secure or nonsecure detention care be given a hearing within a certain timeframe; prohibits an employee from willfully and maliciously neglecting a juvenile offender.

Status: HOUSE: Is referred to only two committees but has not been calendared yet. SENATE: Unanimously passed out of Judiciary and is in the Criminal Justice Appropriations Subcommittee.

Status: HOUSE: Unanimously passed out Justice Appropriations and is headed to its last stop in Judiciary. SENATE: Unanimously passed Criminal Justice and is headed to last committee stop in Appropriations.

Summary: Repeals provisions relating to testing and approval of sparklers and registration of manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers of sparklers; repeals provisions relating to sale and use of fireworks; repeals provisions relating to bond of licensees; conforms provisions and maintains local regulation of same.

Status: HOUSE: Was TP’d in Insurance and Banking committee and has not been recalendared. SENATE: Passed the Commerce and Tourism committee 7-4 and is now in Regulated Industries, its last committee of reference.

Summary: The bill amends s. 252.355, F.S., to require the Division of Emergency Management (DEM) to develop and maintain a Special Needs Shelter registration program. The registration program must include a uniform electronic registration form and a database for uploading and storing the registration forms. The link to the registration form must be easily accessible on each local emergency management agency’s website. The registration information must be accessible to the local emergency management agency responsible for providing shelter for that individual.

Status: HB 709 passed the House Health Quality Subcommittee on March 5 and will be heard next in the Appropriations Committee. SB 840 was temporarily postponed on the same day.

Outlook:Currently, local emergency management agencies are required to maintain a registry of persons with special needs. These registries are developed locally and, over the years, have been amended to reflect local needs and conditions (e.g., Miami-Dade has a registry in three languages). Accordingly, while all counties have registration systems that share similar data inputs, a majority also include supplemental information that is specifically unique to them. For this reason, counties have resisted a central registration system.